


Here's the Thing: I Can't do Anything Right

by FuryBeam136



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Lots of hurt very little comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, so yknow the usual for me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 22:34:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30113052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuryBeam136/pseuds/FuryBeam136
Summary: Akechi Goro has always been alone. Has never had anyone to rely on but himself, and even then, he isn’t a reliable person when it comes to feelings. When it comes to irrationality.And that’s what this is. Irrational. The deep, aching longing to be recognized, really, truly seen for who he is beneath the layers and layers of masks, armor, walls he’s built up around himself. The way his heart seizes in his chest when he sees Kurusu Akira’s gaze pierce all those layers, even just for the briefest of instants, and still not look away.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Here's the Thing: I Can't do Anything Right

Akechi Goro has always been alone. Has never had anyone to rely on but himself, and even then, he isn’t a reliable person when it comes to feelings. When it comes to irrationality.

And that’s what this is. Irrational. The deep, aching longing to be recognized, really, truly seen for who he is beneath the layers and layers of masks, armor, walls he’s built up around himself. The way his heart seizes in his chest when he sees Kurusu Akira’s gaze pierce all those layers, even just for the briefest of instants, and still not look away.

He’s going to kill Kurusu before the year is over. There’s a plan. A script. Scripts are easy to follow, rational, predictable, and he is dependable when things are rational. When he has a task to complete, a list of names and a gun in his hand. So why is it that when someone who should just be a name on a list, yet another task to tick off his to do list, looks at him and smiles, that he wants to reach out? That he wants to let his guard down, let Kurusu creep in past his defenses?

He isn’t sure why he invites Kurusu to Jazz Jin. He isn’t sure why Kurusu says yes. He isn’t sure why, sitting here with the dim lights and the soft music, he wants to let all the things he’s so carefully bottled up spill over. He wants to bury himself in Kurusu’s arms and let himself _feel_ for the first time since… since… he isn’t sure. Since when? How long has it been since he’s let himself feel anything but hate and spite and that dark, bittersweet sense of accomplishment when his father looks at him and smiles and gives praise he doesn’t really mean?

His hands are shaking, he realizes. He stills them.

“I’ve never shared this place with anyone.” The words spill over unbidden, he’s trying to stop a leak with a glass that’s already full. His heart is beating faster, faster, and the smooth voice of the jazz singer does nothing to calm it. “You’re the first.”

Kurusu smiles, that small, quirk of his lips, more a smirk than a smile, really, and in that soft, deep voice of his, murmurs, “I’m honoured.”

The words should mean nothing. They should bounce off the walls, the armor, the masks. But somehow they slip through, slip under his skin like a parasite, and he finds that _frightens_ him. He’s scared of what it means, to hold Kurusu’s words so close to his heart. He’s terrified of letting anyone in.

Smile, laugh, perfect and pretty and as seen on TV, lips curled just right, eyes closed just so.

“I thought we were past the TV smiles,” Kurusu speaks again, softer, gentler. Once again it slips past his defenses, once again he hates it, hates, hates, hates Kurusu and everything he’s doing to him.

“My apologies,” he says, going through the motions, feeling oddly detached. “It’s a force of habit.”

And Kurusu frowns, and he hates that frown, hates the way it creases his face, furrows his brow. “Something’s bothering you.”

He wants to but does not say, “It’s you, it’s the way you look at me and you don’t see the second coming of the Detective Prince, you don’t see a kid playing at something bigger, you see me, you see Akechi Goro, and somehow you don’t turn away.”

He says instead, “It’s nothing to worry yourself over, Kurusu-kun.” And even the way the name falls from his lips is bittersweet on his tongue and threatens to draw some unfamiliar vulnerability from his chest, so he chokes it down, stares into gray eyes as though challenging their owner to call out his lies, and he hates, hates, hates.

He finds his hate turning inwards, and, well, it’s better than acknowledging that _vulnerability_ , so he brushes it aside with a made for TV smile and a brief adjustment of his gloves.

“You can trust me.” The words are sincere, too sincere, too soft and warm and _inviting_ and he wants to believe them but they’ll turn out to be a lie somehow, they always do.

“Can I truly trust anyone?” The words spill over, slip out before he can rein them in, bitter and sour and dripping with venom, and it’s too late, he’s leaking, he’s spilling over. There’s a knot in his chest between his lungs and he feels for all the world like he’s drowning, but he keeps smiling, eyes never straying from Kurusu’s, an unspoken challenge, a plea.

“Yes.” And the word is stated so simply, so matter-of-fact, that he almost believes it. But then he shoves it all down again and hates, hates, hates, hates Kurusu, hates trust, hates vulnerability, hates _himself_ above all else because he’s sitting in the one place he ever thought he could truly call safe with his enemy, with the person he’s supposed to kill, with the person who’s going to kill him first, has to kill him first, and it hits him like a train that _he doesn’t want to die-_

He’s not breathing. He should fix that.

His head pounds in time to his racing heart and he tries to smile, throw a witty response, keep up this game of back and forth, but his throat is closing up and the sound that comes out is a pathetic, choked _whimper_ and he really hopes Kurusu doesn’t hear it over the music, doesn’t hear the way his breathing has picked up.

“You’re crying, Akechi.”

He freezes, a deer in headlights, and finally, finally, looks away. Looks down at his hands, at the way they shake around his drink. Looks away from them to the jazz singer who moves so carelessly he envies her, and envy is an emotion he can work with, envy is so close to hate and spite and if he could just latch onto that instead of the sudden, sharp _terror_ that’s flooding his system and drowning him that would be great.

There’s a hand on his shoulder. He flinches away from the touch.

“It’s okay. Breathe, okay?” Who does the voice belong to again? His enemy, he thinks, somewhere distant and detached. The person he is to kill.

If it’s his enemy, why is it so soft?

He should say something. Pull his mask back up, hide back behind the walls. He should leave. Excuse himself. Run away. He has to get away.

Slower, more gentle, his supposed enemy places a hand on his arm. “Come on,” that soft voice speaks, gentle, coaxing. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

He’s so detached from himself as his supposed enemy carefully guides him somewhere that he doesn’t realize where they’re going until they’re sitting in a dusty room on an old, faded sofa. His supposed enemy moves an arm around him.

He leans into the touch. It’s warm, it’s soft, it’s _safe_.

“Just breathe.” The arm pulls him closer, into a chest, and he finds himself gripping it with shaking hands, terrified to let go. A soft hand traces gentle lines across his spine and he shivers, but does not pull away. He feels safe in these arms, and yet.

And yet he’s going to kill this boy before the end of the year.

And yet he’s going to die along with him.

And yet.

“I don’t want to die,” he admits, choking, desperate, pleading.

“I know.”


End file.
